


Trials and Tribulations of a Teenage Witch

by heretothere



Series: Unintended Extras [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:54:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28400472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heretothere/pseuds/heretothere
Summary: follow Renjun the teenage witch as he navigates school, the supernatural, and relationships
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun & Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: Unintended Extras [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080032
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Trials and Tribulations of a Teenage Witch

**Author's Note:**

> the first installment of explorations in the [Unintended Consequences](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23612926/chapters/56665885) universe! this fic can /sort of/ stand on its own but references info the originial fic enough id recommend reading that first
> 
> i dont have a set story for this one the way i had for UC but ive been planning some of these scenes for a while. some later additions will have more chronology than this chapter but i wanted to get this out there  
> may turn a bit shippy later on, will update tags as necessary

“I swear to god, can you please properly label your potions? Or, better yet, buy a personal fridge for your shit?”

“Oh my god,” Donghyuck jumped off the couch, “which one did you-” he took the reused juice bottle from Renjun’s hands. “Alright, I’d say skip class. This one might turn your skin green.”

“Are you for real?” he looked down at his arms, luckily no different, yet.

Donghyuck laughed at him, “Of course not, loser. But I meant the skip class part. It’s a sleeping potion. Potency unverified.”

Renjun slammed the refrigerator door closed. “If I fall into a neverending slumber, you’re not getting any of my shit.”

“It’ll be fine, we’ll just wake you up with true love’s kiss,” Donghyuck made a kissy face towards him.

Renjun pushed him out of the way. “I’m taking a nap. If I’m not up by dinner, please call your mentor to make sure you didn’t kill me.” He didn’t bother picking up his bookbag from where he left it in a dining room chair, where he had left it expecting to head to campus after getting something to drink.

He wondered who would be worth asking to copy notes from later. He already felt heavier as he pushed open the room to his shared room.

“I thought you had class?” Jeno asked from his desk.

“We don’t have any orange juice,” he grumbled and flopped face-first onto his bed.

“ . . . Right.”

***

Renjun hadn’t always been interested in the occult.

Like many things in Renjun’s life since starting university, his roommates were to blame.

Well, in this case, one roommate.

Renjun met Donghyuck, Jeno, and Jaemin by chance. As in: they were randomly assigned a dorm suite together. When Renjun had arrived move-in day of freshman year, one side was already claimed and dressed-up but vacant of anyone else, leaving Renjun to unpack and sort his belongings in silence by himself.

There had been nothing odd then, besides the fact Renjun couldn’t understand how the other side was already so decorated when the time to move-in had started less than five hours ago.

“Oh, your roommate’s here!” 

Renjun jumped at the voice, looking up from where he had the orientation booklet open on his bed. The upper body of another boy was leaning out of the door to the bathroom.

They stared at each other, the other boy smiling and Renjun expressionless, trying to figure out what to say himself.

Another boy slid past him into the room. He was rounder in the face and had dyed hair. “Oh, you’re already unpacked? I didn’t even know you got here.”

Renjun nodded once at the boy’s smile. 

“I’m Donghyuck.”

“Renjun.”

“That’s Jeno,” Donghyuck pointed back at the boy who was still half-standing in the bathroom. “Bring Jaemin over. Let’s hang out in here now,” he instructed and Jeno disappeared. Donghyuck turned back to him, “Our suitemates,” he clarified.

“Do you guys already know each other?” Renjun asked quietly; he couldn’t quite find his voice. He knew this situation might happen, that he would be a loner placed amongst a group of friends.

Donghyuck shook his head, his lips pouting a bit when he did. “Nah, but they're cool! I’ve been in their room since I, you know, finished unpacking.” He hopped onto his own bed, directly across from Renjun.

Renjun fidgeted with the edge of the booklet he hadn't bothered to close, looking down at it to avoid speaking.

The bathroom door opened again. Jeno and who Renjun figured had to be Jaemin entered.

Jeno was looking at his phone, “We still haven’t decided if we’re going to go to the fair tonight.” He tilted the screen towards Renjun, showing him the list of welcoming events for freshmen.

“It sounds boring, to be honest,” Jaemin dropped down to the floor and leaned against the post of Donghyuck’s bed.

“It doesn’t matter if the event itself is boring,” Jeno argued, “It’s about making friends, or something.”

"I'm sure we'll bond plenty over having to literally live together," Jaemin rolled his eyes.

“What do you think?” Donghyuck said, volume a notch above the other two, looking to Renjun.

He shrugged, “How bad could it be? They give out free stuff at these things too, don’t they?”

“See, he gets it!” Jeno said.

Renjun relaxed back against the wall his bed was along.

It turned out to be easy to become friends with them.

***

It was after dark when Renjun shuffled out of his room. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, the bottom edge of which was dragging on the floor. He was still groggy as all hell, but he needed food.

The main lights were off and Donghyuck was on the couch playing a video game. He only glanced away from the flashing screen for a second when Renjun’s disheveled form came into view.

Renjun redirected himself to the couch, uncaring if he jostled Donghyuck when he dropped down. Maybe he could bully him into making him food. It was his potion that had done him in after all.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, sleeping beauty,” Donghyuck snorted.

Retorts sat on the tip of Renjun’s tongue, but he still felt too tired to speak.

Donghyuck glanced over again, risking his position in his game, “You okay?”

Renjun hummed. 

They sat in silence after Donghyuck further turned down the volume on the TV. Renjun’s eyes were directed at the screen but he wasn’t actually watching, mind fuzzy and still on the edge of sleep.

His eyes fluttered open when the TV shut off and he watched Donghyuck get up. He flinched when the kitchen light was turned on and buried himself further into his blanket when there was the clank of a pan being taken out and the pop of the fridge being opened. 

An indeterminable time later, Donghyuck pushed a bowl of tossed together leftovers in front of his face. He made a vague noise in gratitude.

***

Renjun didn’t know when Donghyuck started practicing. He changed the story every time he was asked.

Donghyuck had tried to be sneaky about it, about his extracurricular witchery, and to his credit, it wasn’t so much that Donghyuck was bad at being sneaky as it was Renjun being able to tell something was afoot.

There was never anything obviously out of place. No spellbooks open on his desk, no boiling pots of bizarre liquids on a portable electric stove, no vials, no bones, nothing besides schoolwork and trinkets from home jumbled on his desk and under his bed. 

But it didn’t feel right.

Sometimes Renjun would come back from a long day out to find the room empty but stifling. Multiple times he asked Jeno or Jaemin to step into their room, asking if they smelt anything wrong- chemicals, rotting food, or maybe something else entirely, but they would look around and shake their heads.

Jeno started frequenting their room more often, worried Renjun was losing it. It just made him more on edge. 

There were also the times Donghyuck would shove something in his drawers when Renjun would open the door, very obviously changing what he was doing with Renjun now in the room. It was suspicious.

It came to a head when Renjun saw a perfectly cut crystal sitting on Donghyuck’s desk. Renjun had just come back from class, his bookbag still over his shoulder as he stood on Donghyuck’s side of the room and stared at the object.

The door slammed open, Donghyuck breathing heavily. He rushed over, “Fuck . . . I thought I lost this for a minute,” he wiped his hand over his brow and snatched it up.

Renjun narrowed his eyes at him.

“What?” Donghyuck blinked at him, face still pink from running.

***

Developing sense as a witch wasn’t easy.

It was sort of like a sports ability, which you could practice and tune as much as you'd like, but it would still be second to those who had the better build.

Renjun, in the case of sensing supernatural activity, was the right build. It wasn’t a skill he asked for, and without it, he probably would have never started practicing in the first place. 

Donghyuck took the empty bowl from him before it fell to the floor from Renjun's grip becoming too loose. Renjun’s head felt like a rock and he curled in on himself further with his hands now free. He lifted his head when Donghyuck used magic to clean up the kitchen. 

“Is Jaemin here?” Renjun sat up, shaking his head, trying to rid it of drowsiness.

“No,” Donghyuck pushed the clean dishes into the proper cabinets, “Jeno convinced him to train with him.”

Renjun snorted. 

***

Accepting Donghyuck as a witch had been easy. 

Renjun hadn't let him weasel his way out of explaining it, pent up after weeks of not understanding what was going on. It was a weird explanation, granted, but it had given reason to the weird aura their room emanated and justified what Renjun had been feeling.

From then on Donghyuck stopped trying to hide what he was doing, even admitting the fact to Jeno and Jaemin, who didn’t understand, but were supportive nonetheless. Once the dam had been broken, Donghyuck was excited to share that part of his life, and Renjun could barely keep up with the terminology he used.

Becoming a witch himself had been a natural progression, with his heightened senses and Donghyuck always there with his own projects. For a while he just watched what Donghyuck did, sometimes lending a hand when he was asked to. The more he knew, the more he felt, the more he wanted to do it himself.

Donghyuck first showed him one of his demon brands a couple weeks after the initial reveal, had described what summoning a demon entailed, what the price of doing so was, how it was a vital part of any witch's CV. The odd scar that looked more like a stroke of dark red paint on Donghyuck's skin bounced back and forth in Renjun's brain for days afterward.

The brand from Renjun’s first deal was low on his hip. It was somewhere easily hideable and a shape that could pass easily enough for a strange scar. He had been lucky his preparations prior to seeing the summoning through hadn’t been for naught, that he hadn’t gotten a demanding demon his first time.

In fact, they had been quite nice, had laughed when Renjun laid out his negotiation, hadn’t pushed it to be worse. They had been impressed at the amount of thought Renjun had put into it. Once the enchantment was made, the demon disappeared with the tubberware of blood and the mark they had made on his hip burned a second time. 

The charm laid on their apartment wouldn’t follow them when they moved out. The next occupants would either consider themselves suddenly lucky they never broke any of their dishes when they dropped them or they wouldn’t even notice at all.

***

While Renjun could notice the presence of magic even before being inducted, Donghyuck, on the other hand, was not so predisposed to sense. The lingering scent of a potion gone wrong didn’t bother him like it did Renjun. Occasionally Renjun even had to sleep at someone else’s place because it would be too overwhelming in the apartment for him to get anything else done.

It was one of the reasons they didn't share rooms anymore. Donghyuck was the most active witch Renjun knew ( _the_ only, for a long time, but it was still worth emphasizing!) and he left traces everywhere he went. Jeno was a fine roommate, but most importantly his presence didn't charge the air of the room with magical activity.

Sometimes, when Renjun was in the living room, Donghyuck would intentionally misfire whatever he was working on and yell, "Vibe Check!"

Renjun hated him in those moments.

***

They only had one blissful semester in the dorms, if you could call anything about the cramped space blissful. 

It was unusual to cancel housing for the second semester, especially if you were a freshman, and especially if you weren’t dropping out. Renjun had lied to Kun about why they had moved into an off-campus apartment. Though, he had just given him the same reasonings three of them had used as pleas to their parents to allow them move out, the real cause of which was Donghyuck's eviction from the dorms for starting a fire (and being unable to cover it up).

They hadn’t wanted some random thrown into their shared space when the four of them had made something of their dynamic in a few short months. They came up with many points, said it was cheaper, that the dining hall wasn’t very good, that it would teach them responsibility, or something.

Living off-campus had its perks, but it was _hell_ if you were an art student.

He didn’t trust himself to do transmutation spells on his work, especially if he’d have to make them normal again in the art building, where people could see him.

Donghyuck risked it all the time. Even if he wasn’t the best at it, he was able to diffuse weird looks with just a smile. Renjun didn’t have that immediate likability his one extrovert friend had.

“I’m an extrovert.”

“You’re an ambivert at best, Jeno,” Renjun rolled his eyes.

***

Renjun thumbed his tarot cards while he looked at the half-completed paper in front of him. The edges of a number of the cards were tearing; he used them more often than he thought he would. Hit by inspiration, he had used a class project as an excuse to design his own deck.

He would consider making a new set, but it was a lot of work and required time he didn’t have.

There was a knock on his door, but someone started opening it before he even responded.

“Hey, can you help me find my notes?”

Renjun put his forehead down on his desk. “I’ve told you, if I don’t know what your notes look like, and if  _ you  _ don’t remember what your notes look like, I can't do anything that will make finding whatever random piece of paper you lost easier.”

“Pleeease,” Jaemin leaned further into the room, hanging on the doorframe.

“Go ask Donghyuck.”

“He’s busy.”

“I’m busy,” Renjun motioned up at his computer without lifting his head.

Later Renjun would find messily written notes about classic literature theory folded and tucked between the couch cushions. This was not by use of any magic, mind you. 

He rapped on the door to Donghyuck and Jaemin’s room and slipped the papers underneath.

“Thanks!” Jaemin called out without opening the door, when Renjun was already almost back in his own room, “I knew you could find them!”

***

Donghyuck made up for his lack of sense in many other ways. When it came to tangible magic, things that required crafting or casting, he was definitely ahead.

The number of times Renjun had seen Donghyuck hunched over a make-shift cauldron, bangs held back with a clip or a headband, eyes alight with curiosity and perseverance, were innumerable. He was clearly in his element there, even when his experiments didn't go as planned. 

Renjun admired him in those moments.

Renjun didn’t have a touch for potions, and he wasn’t interested in developing it. Donghyuck did enough of that for one tiny apartment kitchen anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> (if you need the context, a dorm suite in a university is not uncommonly two rooms with separate entrances and connected internally by a bathroom)
> 
> idk when the next update of this will be, but it'll happen! eventually!  
> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/heretothere/)  
> 


End file.
